Product Description

A practical, creative guide for planting or redesigning a church and developing leaders

Written by Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr, two experienced church planters and mentors/teachers, Church Turned Inside Out offers church leaders a new way to think about how their churches are run. Taking cues from the world of business and offering a multi-disciplined and leading-edge approach, the authors stress the importance of incorporating the design process when establishing a new church or planning the ongoing future of an established church. This groundbreaking book also includes ideas for becoming a more effective church leader.

• Offers a practical perspective and a multi-disciplinary approach to establishing a new church or running an existing one
• Includes important lessons for nurturing church leadership skills
• Shows how to honor a church's purpose while embracing its unique culture
• Contains a wealth of illustrative models, examples, charts, and other visual aides

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46758 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470383179
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Inside Flap

There are no sacred models of church, no specific molds into which God pours blessings, and no special leadership styles that are holier than others. Too often, though, church leaders attempt to pattern their ministries after either tradition or the successes of a few prominent trendsetting congregations.

In Church Turned Inside Out, Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr push back on the one-size-fits-all approach. They invite leaders of all kinds of churches—new and existing, megachurches and microchurches—to walk through an inside-out design process. Instead of starting with models and methods, they insist that every sphere of church life resonates with and communicates what you really believe.

As the book unfolds, it moves from abstract concepts toward concrete suggestions. It considers the uniqueness of individual leaders, their teams, and their particular communities, cultures, and contexts while taking seriously both spiritual and practical dimensions. This process results in more potent and effectively organized churches. Perhaps more important, it helps church leaders discover ways to live and work more wholly and faithfully, according to how God created them. It really is possible for a church to be so beautifully designed that every structure, program, and relationship reflects what it intends. Sometimes this requires a whole new design, and other times it only takes re-aligning or refining what already exists. This thoughtful and systemic approach opens a wider array of possible church paradigms than most people ever imagine, but the real goal is not innovation but transformation.

Using a blend of theology, biblical imagery, and metaphors from culture and creation, Church Turned Inside Out provides respectful ways to consider adaptation and change. It offers a hopeful vision of what the church can and must become. It not only positions the church for its future mission to the twenty-first century but offers timeless principles for the church of today.

From the Back Cover
Praise for Church Turned Inside Out

"What an extremely hopeful, heart-lifting, and practical book for anyone who loves the church. We must never be afraid to look at our church from the inside out as that is where true change will happen." —Dan Kimball author, They Like Jesus but Not the Church

"I think Linda and Allan do a great job of giving an overview of our world and context. They show the different approaches to church, but they don't stop there. Instead they deal with design and what it would look like! Every church is an original, and they show how yours can be, too." —Bob Roberts Jr. author, The Multiplying Church

"In this thought-provoking and insightful book, the authors . . .provide us with useful tools that help us think strategically. They examine how God is using people to design new models and refine or re-align existing models of church, and how, working together cooperatively, these churches can reach out to . . . diverse communities surrounding them. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a culturally relevant church in today's society." —Felicity Dale author, An Army of Ordinary People, coauthor, The Rabbit and the Elephant

"This book provides a savvy challenge for design work to be taken more seriously in the quest for fresh forms of the church. The call to embody and commend the gospel and the importance of people, place, and moment are held tightly together. Church planters as well as re-aligners and refiners will benefit immensely from this book!" —George Hunsberger coordinator, the Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America, and author, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbigin's Theology of Cultural Plurality

About the Author

Linda Bergquist has been a church planter and church planting teacher for twenty-five years. She also has experience in the area of church consultations and urban ministry to the poor and assists her husband, who is a ministry center director in the Lower Haight district of San Francisco.

Allan Karr is currently an associate professor of missional/church planting at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and a practitioner of church planting and community development. Allan has also served for ten years as a national missionary of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

ABOUT LEADERSHIP NETWORK

The mission of Leadership Network identifies and connects innovative church leaders, providing them with resources in the form of new ideas, people, and tools. Contact Leadership Network atwww.leadnet.org.

Customer Reviews

Let's Design Together
My family and I live in a city where the church cannot keep up with our life or our urban pace. This book addresses why so many outsiders see the church as a bounded institution and insiders feel over taxed and detached from the world. So much of our life and resources are drained by these struggling and demanding models. Could it be that much of our problem is in our design and the loss of our center? Linda and Allan make the case that we need to design unique models for cities, people groups, and so many new realities. The pages of this book are filled with theology, history and new metaphors to consider. There is no "how to" or "silver bullet", the authors call Pastors and leaders to invite designers and re aligners to the party if they are to transition existing churches and establish new churches that are fruit bearing and release the fragrance of Christ in this amazing new world. I believe this is a pioneer book, moving us away from the dissatisfied and narcissistic dialogues. It is not a fearful and deconstructive read but one filled with resolve and hope. The authors write from practice. They are friends and peers, but also unique in their exchange. Thank you Linda and Allen for inspiring the designer in me.

What is your church's DNA?
As I opened this book, written by two Southern Baptist church planters/consultants, I wasn't sure what to expect. I must admit that I was prepared to not care for the message - being that the authors are Southern Baptists. Although the authors are relatively conservative in their theology, that ethos doesn't hang over what turned out to be a very insightful book about how we might approach the church in the 21st century.

The subtitle to the book gives important information about this book's purpose. It suggests that we who are involved in leadership of the church, in approaching our calling, will find it helpful to discern our starting point. Are we primarily designers, refiners, or re-aligners. Over time we likely will engage in some of each of these tasks, but for most of us we find ourselves confronted with a specific context in which we work. So, if you are starting a new congregation, you are likely being called to be a designer. But, if you are involved with an existing congregation, especially one that has been in existence for decades, the job likely involves less design and more refining and re-aligning. If we seek to participate in the reform and renewal of the church, we need to know and understand both the culture in which we exist, and the culture of the church that exists within that culture.

The authors of this book speak to both of these contexts - the external and the internal, and in the course of their book, based on their own experiences as church planters and in consulting with congregations, they suggest ways in which we might bring a bit of coherence to this work.

Churches have grown in large part by tapping into a ready-made audience - those who are looking for a church. We have done this in much same way as McDonalds - setting up franchises, and those that are most adept at marketing and serving their customers grow. That audience is shrinking, and so its time to begin thinking outside the box and adapting to the changing times. This task may require of us different skills, depending on where we find ourselves. We might be designing new ways of engaging the world, or realigning our community to better link with the broader community. That may involve redesigning methods, while leaving the message unchanged - but I would venture to say that for those who are more progressive, the message itself may need redesigning and realigning.

Although we are being called to this task, the authors assume - theologically - that God is the master designer, re-aligner, and refiner. Still, we must recognize what we bring to the equation. We must ask important questions about the things that influence what we do and believe. That is, there is DNA to consider.
So, what is the DNA of the church one leads or experiences? And how does that DNA influence what the church is and does? This is an important question that we must address.

What really struck me was the section dealing with models of church. Too often books on church renewal and growth make assumptions - assuming that churches really all alike. Thus, they limit themselves to two models - let's call them attractional and missional. I've been talking in much this same language. But even missional congregations reflect an ethos, often one that they inherited. Thus, the way they experience missional life, will be influenced by this inheritance.

The authors speak of three primary models of church life - attractional, relational, and legacy. The first, the attractional model, focuses on providing a high quality product that will attract the seeker. Evangelism is the priority, and the format is key to drawing people in. It's time and resource intensive - and is largely the purview of the mega-church. This is, I believe, an important definition - because many congregations fall into the trap of trying to compete with such a entity and when it fails it becomes despondent and ineffective.

There is a second model, the relational model, that focuses on gathering people on the basis of personal relationships. These to be smaller communities - perhaps house churches. The healthiest of these communities are those that gather "around missional and incarnational purposes, including community service or a social meal that can be combined with other biblical activities of the church" (p. 129).

The final model is the legacy model. I suspect that a majority of American churches, and especially most mainline Protestant churches, fall into this category. We draw people in because of social legitimacy, reputation, or a certain level of comfort. Some of these churches are neighborhood focused and others denoninationally - that is brand focused. They may center around a certain form of worship. Thus, Disciples (my community) know themselves and present themselves as offering a place that gathers weekly at the Table.

Under each of these models we find sub-models. Thus, under attractional churches we find seeker, purpose-driven, and multi-site churches. Relational churches can be house churches, intentional Christian communities, and cell churches. Legacy models include denominational churches, worship focused, and neighborhood churches. Each model has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each requires something different from the community and its leadership. To some degree the model we choose to engage will reflect theology and temperament.

For us to move forward we must discern who we are, what our DNA is, and then begin to discern what it is we're called to be and do in our own context. They write:

"Many of you are in the same situation. There is something about your church or community context that you need to prune or work around in order to respect both the old and the new, what God is doing now, and what God put in place in another era. Perhaps the tree in the middle of the yard is your own irregular, bi-vocational work schedule, a deacon who wields too much power, a local regulation banning churches that meet in homes, an urban neighborhood with no parking, a musty old building you wish you could sell, a gated community you wish you could penetrate, a bird sanctuary that was discovered on the land you purchased, a tacky mural painted by the church's oldest saint, a venerated pulpit, a canonized hymn book, the customary passing of the plate, or the traditional passing of the peace. All of these things can present the opportunity for a reality check that points to the need for pruning, reshaping, and reconfiguring. That's what church refiners and re-aligners do, but even designers never completely escape the process. What do you need to landscape around, and how will you do it with integrity and grace?" (pp. 145-146).

How we respond will reflect our values and beliefs. There needs to be congruency between the desired outcome and who we are as a community. Thus, a long established congregation, with a fairly set understanding of what belongs in worship, but one that desires to be missional in its essence, must connect the two so that there is congruency. At the same time, if we are to redesign and realign and refine, we will need to change the focus from inward needs to outward ones.

There is much to this book that a reader will find helpful. It reminds us that we need to make sure that our structures are responsive to the world in which we live and to its own ethos and resources. They also note that it's important to recognize that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Although written by authors with a conservative bent, this is a book that can be read usefully by persons of a variety of backgrounds. Although they may prefer a certain model, they don't hold up that model as "the" model. They recognize, perhaps more than many authors, the diversity that is the church, and that if we are to become more than we are, we have to recognize our starting point.

Designing community around people, place and passion
"When plans for birth or change in communities of faith are hatched from strategies or models, without adequate consideration for people, place and passion, the results can be dehumanizing. In Church Inside Out, Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr help us appreciate the importance of personality, story and culture in the design of transformational communities. This book offers a holistic and organic approach to creating community, useful to both seasoned practitioners and those just beginning to dream about making a life together in the way of Jesus."Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus (Living Way: Emergent Visions)Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus (Living Way: Emergent Visions)

--Mark Scandrette, Author of SOUL GRAFFITI: Making A Life in the Way of Jesus